


amends

by CallMeCaptainOrSir, HyperchaoticStarlight (MVPYurio)



Series: i'll be around for you [22]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Age of Ultron can Suck Our Dicks, Apologies, Fix-It of Sorts, Gen, POV Bruce Banner, POV Natasha Romanov, That's not a tag???, Wanda Maximoff is a Good Bro
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-26
Updated: 2018-11-26
Packaged: 2019-08-30 00:09:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,698
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16754098
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CallMeCaptainOrSir/pseuds/CallMeCaptainOrSir, https://archiveofourown.org/users/MVPYurio/pseuds/HyperchaoticStarlight
Summary: Natasha does something she should've done a long time ago.





	amends

**Author's Note:**

> Wowee, we've taken a long time to update, haven't we? We're gonna try and become a little more regular, don't worry.

“You never come into my room. Something’s bothering you.”

It was another one of those nights, the ones after missions where the others were inexplicably fine, but Natasha and Wanda remained shaken for hours. Usually, Wanda would be the one tiptoeing into Natasha’s room hours after dark, her younger mind less used to the weight of reformation. Natasha had become used to it—a very soft tap at her door at around three in the morning after a difficult mission, followed by a split-second pinprick of light and hesitant footsteps over the threshold.

Wanda didn’t need to knock, and she knew that—but she did anyway, sweet girl that she was. For someone who could lift a bus with her mind and throw it at an enemy without thought, she was quite sensitive.

Or maybe that was just because it was Natasha’s room, and barging into Natasha’s room was all but a death sentence.

But this time, it was Natasha who came into Wanda’s room at around two and collapsed onto the beanbag that was usually Vision’s.

“Yeah. Yeah, I guess something is.”

“What’s wrong?”

Natasha sighed, staring up at the ceiling. Wanda had painted it herself just a few weeks prior.

“It’s been a while since the Hulk has come out on a mission,” she said quietly. “God, I don’t even think I’ve seen him in person since…”

“Oh.”

“Yeah. Oh.”

“I don’t know what to say to him. I know I have to say something, eventually, but I don’t know what.”

“Why do you have to?” Wanda asked.

“Well, Tony practically acted like his bodyguard as soon as I came on the scene, for one,” said Natasha.

“Now  _ that’s _ something I wish I’d seen,” Wanda snorted. “Leave it to Tony to think he had to defend the Hulk from you.”

“Leave it to him to think he could,” said Natasha.

Wanda laughed again. “But okay, Tony’s being protective. What else is new?”

“I know, I know. I just… I feel bad, Wanda. I was pretty horrible to both Bruce and the Hulk a few years back.”

“It sounds like you want to apologize,” said Wanda. “Maybe you could start with that, and see where the conversation goes.”

Natasha cracked a smile. “That’s… that’s a pretty good idea. Thanks, Wanda.”

“What can I say? Living in the same house as all these geniuses must’ve rubbed off.”

“You’re a good kid, Wanda.”

“Thanks, Nat.”

~~~~

“Hey, Bruce? D’you have a few minutes? There’s something I wanna talk about.”

Bruce put down his mug and turned towards Natasha. “Yeah, sure. What’s up?”

“I’ve been thinking… I owe you an apology.” She took a few steps into the room and ran her knuckles up and down a wooden shelf. “Y’know, for the way I treated you while we were dealing with Ultron. I was… pretty shitty to you.”

Bruce raised an eyebrow. “Did Tony put you up to this?”

Natasha shook her head vigorously. “No. And neither did Steve. It was my idea.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah.”

“It’s fine,” said Bruce.

“It’s not, though,” said Natasha. “I was  _ terrible _ to you, Bruce. I flirted with you even though I knew I was a lesbian; I got close to you just so I could control the Hulk—I shoved you off a  _ cliff,  _ for Christ’s sake.”

“Why?” Bruce asked quietly. He turned and looked Natasha square in the face. “Why did you do all of that?”

“You really wanna know?” Natasha asked.

Bruce nodded. “Yeah. I want to. I might punch you after, but I want to.”

“Fair enough.” Natasha tried a smile, but couldn’t manage more than a grimace. She sighed. “Do… do you remember the first time I… no? Okay. Jeez. Okay. Uhh…” She trailed off, and Bruce realized that Natasha Romanoff, Black Widow, master assassin, agent of SHIELD, was  _ nervous. _

“It was an accident,” she finally said. “The first time… I just went up to talk to you—to the Other Guy—after a battle, and I didn’t know what to say, so I said some shit about the sun and then… you changed back. By coincidence. And I didn’t really pay any attention; I figured you’d just changed back because you felt like it. Steve and Clint were watching, and they thought I’d done it purposefully, and they asked me to do it again—”

“—the exact same way you did it then,” Bruce finished, rolling his eyes,  _ almost  _ laughing.

Natasha laughed, but then stared down at her hands. “Honestly, back then, Steve and Clint could tell me to do just about  _ anything _ and I’d do it. SHIELD had just fallen and I felt like I didn’t have anyone. And what with everyone so hyperfocused on, y’know, morality and doing the right thing and being against HYDRA and terrorists and general assholes… I was scared and desperate, and following Captain America was as close as I could get to a way out. And I figured… I didn’t really know how it worked, whether you chose to or not, or any of that, so I figured it wouldn’t hurt to go along with it.”

“But it did,” Bruce said quietly. “Because it wasn’t like now, where I can more or less remember everything that happens. I had  _ no  _ retention back then. None. So I had no idea what you were doing, and your little ‘coincidence’ Pavlovian-conditioned itself into existence.”

“Tony flipped when he realized you didn’t know,” said Natasha.  _ Nice, Nat. Avoid the point of what Bruce said. Way to go. _ “Yelled at Steve for about an hour.”

“That long ago?” Bruce asked. “I can see him doing it now, but…”

“Oh yeah,” said Natasha. “Don’t tell him I said this, but I’m pretty sure it was love at first sight for him. And even so, he’s always been like that. When Clint was sassing him out about  _ since when was he so protective of you…  _ I almost laughed because he’s always been that protective of you, and I couldn’t believe Clint didn’t realize it.”

“Clint is what we doctors refer to as a clinical dumbass,” said Bruce.

Natasha snorted. “You got that right.”

“But yeah. Nobody told me, so I couldn’t… after the fifth or sixth or seventh time it was just happening and I had no idea why.” Bruce rubbed the back of his neck, tension building up in his frame. “It was fucking terrifying, Nat. I had no idea what was happening to me. All I knew was that you had the answers, but I had no idea how to ask. Hell, even if I had known how to ask, I wouldn’t have… not when everyone loved that you could control me.”

He paused for a moment, staring up at the ceiling, and then looked back at Natasha. “And then you started flirting with me and being really nice and I was just so confused. I didn’t know what you were trying to do.”

“Do you want to know?”

Bruce nodded towards the couch and sank into the cushions. Natasha joined him, perched stiffly on the edge.

“Yeah. But don’t tell me because you think you have to or something.” Bruce rolled his eyes, “My forgiveness isn’t tied to how good your sob story is. Just...time, I guess. And honesty.”

“That’s fair. I want you to understand, anyway.” She pressed her fingers against her thigh, running them along her jeans. “I’m not a scientist or a soldier. I don’t have a family to go visit on the weekends. I don’t have anything outside of the Avengers.” She glanced at him before continuing, “All my accomplishments are within systems that have betrayed me and the purpose they served. I’m a weapon.” Natasha slid back and let her head drop to the top of the couch. “Condition a little girl that her only import is her mission, and she'll do anything to make herself mission vital. I have a limited skill set: seduce, manipulate, assassinate. It’s second nature to make myself useful.” She laughed, a little bitter huff. “I can’t be anywhere near as effective as the rest of you on the battlefield. So I slipped back to what I know.”

She tucked a leg underneath herself, turning to face him. “It’s not an excuse, I know. I just wanted you to know that I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

“What about when you pushed me off the cliff?” Bruce asked dryly.

“I have nothing to say for myself there,” said Natasha, “except that I’m sorry.”

“You could’ve talked to me, y’know.” Bruce put his feet up on the table, yet he didn’t seem relaxed. “Any of you could. I get that you’re all afraid of the Hulk. I was too, for years. Still am, although it’s gotten a lot better since I started training with Tony. But even back then, I understood how he worked, more or less. I would’ve told you, Steve, Fury, the President, Albert Einstein, the man in the moon,  _ anyone, _ what I knew, if any of them had just asked me. But all you wanted, was to control us, to be able to pick sides. And at first, I went along with it, because I hated the Hulk and felt like we deserved whatever you did to us.”

“And now?” Natasha asked softly.

“Now I know better,” Bruce replied. “I know that he and I deserve to choose what we do with our body. That we deserve to be talked to like people—well, a person and his permanent green companion—not controlled.”

“Damn straight you do,” said Natasha.

Bruce raised an eyebrow. “Tony Stark taught me that while I was falling in love with him. How does that qualify as straight?”

Natasha laughed, a real one this time. “Fair enough.”

Bruce looked down at his lap, “I can't say that I forgive you. Not yet. But I don't hate you for it either. I get what it's like to be the outsider, to need the team to approve of you.”

“Thank you, Bruce.”

“You should probably have a chat with Hulk at some point too, but, for what it's worth, he doesn't hate you either.”

“Tell him thanks for me too.”

“Will do, Nat.”

**Author's Note:**

> This series is brought to you by Lia (she/her, HyperchaoticStarlight) and James (they/them, TheMagicMicrobus). We try to update about every 2 weeks. However, we are both students (Lia is in college; James is in high school), and so we cannot promise perfection.
> 
> Find Lia on Tumblr @ hyperchaoticstarlight, marvel-at-these-gays, scienceshipping, and tinytonys.  
> Find James on Tumblr @ themagicmicrobus and morethanhumantogether.
> 
> If you have ideas for this series, please feel free to reach out to one of us and we will consider putting it in!


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